


May The Best Man Win

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, New Frontier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superman has doubts about his mission to take down Batman.  Bruce Wayne is there to listen to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May The Best Man Win

**Author's Note:**

> Continuity is _The New Frontier_ by Darwin Cooke; the story is a fill-in to his _New Frontier Special._ Some of the dialogue in the fight scene is taken directly from Cooke. You can see [scans of his wonderful story here](http://mithen.livejournal.com/108865.html)!

From above, the yacht was a tiny white speck, a little toy on a wide, wrinkled blue cloth. Superman slipped down the sky and alighted on the deck in front of the man in khaki with an impressive array of medals pinned to his chest. "General," said Superman.

The general was standing at attention, ramrod-straight. His uniform was so sharply pressed it almost whistled in the sea breeze. "Superman," he said in a clear, crisp voice. "We should be at Paradise Island in a matter of hours. Wonder Woman has agreed to meet with us as long as we do not step foot on the island."

"It's apparently off-limits to men," drawled a voice to the right; Superman turned to see a figure lounging against the rail, holding a martini glass. He was dressed in a black cardigan and sky-blue polo shirt, with the wind tangled in his dark hair, and raised his glass in an ironic salute toward the still-unseen island. "Such a pity. So much beauty gone to waste."

"Ah," said the general. "Superman, may I introduce you to Bruce Wayne. He agreed to let us use his yacht as neutral ground to discuss the...Batman issue...with the Amazon."

"Anything to help," said Bruce Wayne, smiling. He didn't extend his hand to Superman, taking a sip from his glass instead. "May I offer you a drink, Superman? My butler makes a _divine_ martini."

"No thank you," Superman said, and Wayne shrugged.

"A pleasure cruise with a bunch of teetotalers to a tropical paradise filled with women who reject men...I can see I'm going to have to have fun for all of you." He drained his drink and strolled toward the cabin, calling "Alfred? Be a dear and fix me another martini--twice as dry as the last one, if you please."

Superman cast a glance at the general, who shrugged. "He's loyal, not too curious--and has a good yacht."

"I see," said Superman, keeping his voice neutral. The government seemed to be making a point of recruiting men with resources, little imagination, and a proper deference to authority, like Bruce Wayne.

He wondered how well they thought Superman fit the profile.

 **: : :**

The sky was darkening, the first stars starting to glow in the velvety sky. Behind him Superman could hear the military brass continuing to discuss strategy with King Faraday--where to strike, how to lure Batman into the open. Clark wasn't too concerned with the specific strategy. Batman was a clever, brave, ruthless man, but he was only a man, after all. All his toys would do little against a Kryptonian, even without an Amazon backing him up.

Even without...

He remembered Diana's eyes as she stood up to leave the conference, the anger and disdain snapping in them. She had called Batman "an honorable man." And she had left.

Far off, the horizon faded into the sky, smoky lilac shading into violet so gradually one couldn't be sure where the sea ended and the heavens began. Where did duty end and justice begin?

Clark felt very alone, staring at the distant horizon.

"Sure you won't have a drink? You look like you could use one." Bruce Wayne tapped his ever-present martini glass against the rail. "I'll even share mine. That's just the kind of charitable soul I am." His smile was lopsided.

"She said I'd have to kill him," Clark said.

"Huh? Who and whom?" Wayne cocked his head to the side, puzzled.

"Diana. Wonder Woman. Said I'd have to kill Batman, that I could never take him alive. You were right there," he added a bit irritably.

"I suppose I was at that. Haven't been paying much attention. It’s hard to, when Alfred’s mixing his fantastic martinis and there are pretty Amazon girls prancing on the beach to check out--from a safe distance with good binoculars, of course," Wayne added with a wink and a nudge. He leaned on the rail, looking out at the dimming horizon. "You think it's true? That you'll have to kill the Batman?"

"I don't kill," said Clark.

"There's an exception to every rule."

Clark shook his head. "You're from Gotham. What do you think of him? I hear he does a lot of good, that he's a hero."

Wayne made a scoffing sound. "If the government says he's a menace, that's good enough for me. Sneaking around in the shadows, wearing a mask...not trustworthy behavior, I say. I prefer people who show their handsome faces in the open, like you and I."

Clark didn't meet his sunny smile, still staring out at the water. “Do you ever worry you’re doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? That you’re...letting pride blind you?” He shook his head again at how ludicrous that must sound to a man like Wayne. “It’s nothing, I--”

“--More than you might expect,” said Wayne, with a sudden odd roughness in his tone. “It...bothers you, doesn’t it? All this planning to take the Batman down. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Clark said, his voice almost more quiet than the murmur of the sea lapping against the yacht. “It’s just a gut feeling. It doesn’t feel _right._ ” Bruce Wayne was staring at him, his eyes dark and hard to read in the fading light. Superman thought for a second he saw doubt there, and something close to pity. That stung him, that someone like Wayne would pity him, and he straightened, putting briskness into his tone. “But it doesn’t matter how I feel. The man is a vigilante and it’s my job to bring him to justice, no matter what.”

The shadow seemed to pass from Wayne’s face, leaving his eyes cheerful and untroubled again. He reached out and rested his hand lightly on Superman’s, a reassuring clasp. “Well, if you do go up against him, Superman, I have no doubt that the best man will win,” he said with a smile.

 **: : :**

Bruce Wayne's encouraging words rang in Superman's ears like a death knell when he saw the trap laid out for him, the lead cage with the green glow emanating from it. The cable dragged him toward it, even as he dug his weakened fingers into the ground with all his strength. The madman was going to--kill him? Or leave him locked up like an animal, come by to gloat now and then?

 _No._. He snapped the cable with a desperate yank, sent the cowled figure crashing into the wall. His shoulder was aflame with agony, yammering nonsense into his brain. He couldn't stand up. The room swam in and out of focus, slipped away entirely for a long moment. He couldn't stand up.

Couldn't dodge the kick that snapped his head back into the stone floor.

"Get up, you motherless alien!" roared his foe.

With his last strength, he lunged upward and caught Batman by the throat. It would be so easy, just to tighten his grip...no one would ever know...and it was self defense...

 _I don't kill,_ he heard himself say again to Bruce Wayne, there at the moment where daylight touches night, where the sky touched the sea.

Batman was smiling, a bitter and vicious smile. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, a bruise rising across his jaw. "Go ahead, tough guy. Do it," he rasped.

 _It bothers you, doesn’t it,_ Wayne's voice said again in his memory, soft and serious, with an undercurrent of...hope?

And then Diana was there, her strong arms pulling them apart, her voice ringing like a bell, demanding they stop. “Look at you,” she thundered like Jove’s lightning bolt, “Ready to kill or die over something neither of you want.” And it was true, Clark realized, the adrenaline draining from him, leaving him feeling sick and weary. He didn’t want to fight this man. Didn’t want this man to be trying to kill him. But he couldn’t--

“You’re asking me to trust a man with lead plates in his cowl to hide behind? For God’s sake,” he heard himself saying, his voice shaking with anger and exhaustion, “He tried to kill me not five minutes ago.”

“You make a good point,” Batman said, and now that his voice was hoarse with only weariness and not fury, Clark realized it was familiar, he had heard it somewhere, somewhere quiet... “Perhaps this will help.” And in once swift motion he removed the cowl, smudging blood into Bruce Wayne’s dark hair.

Clark knew he was staring stupidly, too tired to really process that the handsome, battered face before him was actually Batman’s true identity. “All that time on your ship,” he said weakly, and started to laugh at the sheer _chutzpah_ of it.

“No hard feelings,” said Wayne--said _Batman_ \--and his smile was sardonic but his eyes were warm.

“None at all,” Superman managed when his tired chuckle wore out. “None at all.”

They clasped hands, the three of them. “To freedom,” said Diana, and they echoed her.

 **: : :**

“She’s very pleased with herself,” Bruce Wayne said after Diana left, still all smiles.

Clark was staring down at the table with their scribbled notes and plans: his neat print intermingled with Diana’s flowing cursive and Bruce’s oddly precise dark scribbles. “She deserves to be,” he said. It was a good plan. Clark couldn’t help but start to compose the story: _Gotham City. Today, in front of a crowd of horrified witnesses, the Batman defeated Superman in a decisive battle..._

Bruce tapped the table. “This is asking a lot of you,” he said.

Clark looked up swiftly. Bruce’s lip was still oozing blood and the bruise had turned half of his face an ugly yellowish-green, but his eyes were steady and compassionate--not pitying. “I can put aside my pride for the greater good,” Clark said.

“I know. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Clark agreed. “But I can do it.”

Bruce nodded. “Time to go put on a show for the public, I guess.” He drained the last of his coffee, then stood up, grasping his cowl. “Would you...” He hesitated, his battered face still exposed. “After the fight is over, would you like to...come back here? My butler does make a superlative martini.”

“I really don’t drink much,” Clark said apologetically. “But...I’d love to come back for more of this excellent coffee.”

Bruce’s lips curled. “I don’t actually drink either, if I can help it,” he confessed. “But coffee sounds good.”

“No hard feelings,” Clark said, his tone hovering somewhere between a question about the past and a statement about the future.

“No hard feelings,” Bruce repeated firmly, holding out his hand. Clark shook it and Bruce put on the cowl. “Let’s give the government something to chew on.”

Clark couldn’t help smiling. “As you said before, may the best man win.”

“Actually,” said Batman, “I believe we already have.”


End file.
